Towards fully automated robotic platform for remote auscultation.

Abstract

Since most developed countries are facing an increase in the number of patients per healthcare worker due to a declining birth rate and an ageing population, relatively simple and safe diagnosis tasks may need to be performed using robotics and automation technologies, without specialists and hospitals. This study presents an automated robotic platform for remote auscultation, which is a highly cost-effective screening tool for detecting abnormal clinical signs. The developed robotic platform is composed of a 6-degree-of-freedom cooperative robotic arm, LiDAR camera, and a spring-based mechanism holding an electric stethoscope. The platform enables autonomous stethoscope positioning based on external body information acquired using the LiDAR camera-based multi-way registration; the platform also ensures safe and flexible contact, maintaining the contact force within a certain range through the passive-actuated mechanism. Our preliminary results confirm that the robotic platform enables estimation of the landing positions required for cardiac examinations based on the depth and landmark information of the body surface. It also handles the stethoscope while maintaining the contact force without relying on the push-in displacement by the robotic arm. The developed robotic platform enables the estimation of the landing positions and handling the stethoscope while maintaining the contact force, which promises the potential of automatic remote auscultation.